Dolphins of Gondolin
by alena
Summary: A place for my attempts at verse, and other bits and pieces. No. 6 up: five years after this collection began, the actual dolphins of Gondolin.
1. Loss

_Disclaimer:_ Professor Tolkien made Arda.

* * *

**Loss**

****

When I was a child,  
loss was a white feather,  
weightless, soft as snow:  
me on the beach,  
and mother beyond.

When night came,  
it became a silver beam  
from a distant star:  
father in the sky,  
and me earth-bound.

Years later,  
loss was just a bend  
in the gently singing sea:  
me on this side,  
and Celebrían beyond.

And then,  
loss came with a kiss, and a flick  
of Fate's slender blade:  
me in Arda,  
and my Evenstar beyond.

* * *

After "Nostalgia", a short poem by Yu K'uang-chung (1928 - ). For more of Yu K'uang-chung's poetry in English translation, check out _Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry_, edited by Michelle Yeh, and _Frontier Taiwan_, edited by Michelle Yeh and N. G. D. Malmqvist.


	2. Return to Tirion

_Disclaimer:_ All of Arda belong to Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.

* * *

**Return to Tirion**

1.

The gates are dark-streaked with weather,  
The chains gnarled with rust,  
Cold and heavy-laden  
amid the tall-growing grass  
With six hundred years of frost and rain  
And winds from the distant sea...  
Six hundred years in solitude.

Six hundred years and the key still fits,  
Time-untouched, gold glinting  
Against the thick-gnarled iron, the rust's weight.  
Still it turns,  
With a soft click.

Link by link the unwilling chains  
clatter to the ground,  
Inch by inch the creaking hinges,  
Shuddering and groaning the heavy-laden gates  
swinging open inward, so slowly,  
Shuddering and crying the strings drawn near to the breaking  
Of this exiled heart.

2.

Are those voices I hear rising  
within the gates joyous to greet me?  
So many voices fair and melodious  
rising merrily and mingling;  
I discern each one of them,  
recall the owner of each by face and name.  
I stand beyond the threshold  
silent and still--  
Fearing to intrude.

A band of singers at the open window above  
is weaving a sweet festival air,  
To the ripple of silver lutes, and my mother--  
I recognize her just by the playing--at the harp.  
A pair of lovers wander in the garden  
hand in hand;  
They speak in tender whispers,  
and then they speak no longer with words.

In the workshop the master smith  
instructs the young apprentice;  
I hear him among the rhythmic beating of the hammers.  
Down in the courtyard the grooms and stable-lads  
suddenly burst out uproariously laughing;  
I hear my father's laughter among theirs.

And above all those voices a child shouting with glee,  
Running down the steps,  
black hair streaming.  
_Mother, father, I am going out to the city,_  
_To the market-terrace and _  
_ the crystal streets._  
_I won't be gone long, just a little while,_  
_I will be home_  
_ before the mingling of the lights._

3.

_Mother, father, I am home,_  
_ I was not gone long, the light's just fading--_

Upon the path the briar-rose  
twists and entwines its luxuriant thorns,  
and the snow of blown petals whirling thick.  
On the steps the grass grows lush,  
deep like a river, deep-green  
with six hundred springs  
of rain and dreams.

The lilac bushes have been spreading wild-flames,  
Their rich branches over-brimming with many thousands of blossoms,  
A full wavering bank of blossoms to hide the walls.  
And there's the proud oak with outspread boughs,  
Well I remember  
the slender sapling outside my bedroom window:  
Six hundred autumns its leaves withered and fell.  
And everywhere the dark tangled ivy,  
Trailing from the strong-grooved trunks,  
Trailing from the eaves and the windowsills.

No one but the silence answers me,  
no one but the endless leaves rustling,  
the scent of verdure, the mirage's shadow.  
Nothing remains  
of the merriment and the songs  
and the sweet and passionate voices,  
Only echoes of my footfall and my faltering cries,  
Only echoes in the wind.

4.

O my father,  
My father handsome and brave,  
The smile upon his face playing with the shadows,  
The white steed flying, the laughter, the long gait,  
The strong arms lifting me up high into the air.

My mother's eyes were the blue-grey of storms,  
Lit with gladness, proud and fair.  
She took me by the hand and walked with me,  
telling me the names of all the trees and flowers.  
She stopped a moment and gazed at me,  
her long hair windswept;  
She was more beautiful than the description of words.

O my father, O my mother!  
O the craftsmen and the tall youths,  
the keepers of the arbours and the gardens,  
The singers and the riders,  
The maidens and the gentle lovers,  
So many went out of these gates, so many together,  
And now I alone return.

5.

Lamps of Tirion below me,  
below this dusty and deserted tower,  
Rising against the gathering twilight,  
against the heart heavy-laden with mourning.  
Each one a reflected star  
in a vast pool of stars,  
Each one a reflected long-gone tear.

You who went from this house  
and from this land,  
You who sinned and suffered,  
fought and wept,  
You for whom I sinned and suffered,  
fought and wept,  
You whom I love,  
Now that I am returned home  
I would have you by my side.

6.

Another pool of lamps against the night,  
Pale and faint against the sky without stars.  
Another city  
beneath the blackness of a Night black beyond mere night,  
Until the glow of the lamps turned to pyres.

A silver-haired child crouched in the middle of the street,  
Next to two bodies lying cold and crumpled on the pavement,  
Clutching at their lifeless arms and shaking them hard;  
Her keening voice was strange but I understood her.  
_O my father, O my mother,_  
_Your eyes are wide open, _  
_Look at me__, I am here._  
_Hear me, I am crying and crying,_  
_I am here, right here._  
_O father, mother!_  
_Why will you not answer me?_  
_Why will you not wake?_

It was my father that slew the fisherman  
And then the fisherman's wife;  
She'd flung herself blindly at him,  
her hair loose and flying wild, unarmed;  
She must have gone mad with grief.  
His sword entered her chest  
and came out the back.

And my father lay only a little distance from them,  
just down the street,  
His eyes were wide open,  
staring empty  
but for the red reflections of flames.  
A small puddle of blood was forming under him,  
Spreading slowly from the spot he'd fallen,  
Pierced with two arrows.

7.

A black-haired child crouched in the hold of the ship,  
Shaking with every toss of the storm,  
With every shout hoarse and angry above,  
The hail thudding against the planks,  
And in every direction the infinite wrathful waves.

Out of the dimness, my mother's face,  
Amid the whirling confusion of torches,  
The mass of faces tumultuous with fear on the shore,  
Her hair loose and drenched with briny spray  
and her eyes filled with shadows,  
With a knowledge I did not recognize,  
Pleading with strangers.

_Take her with you, please, my lord,_  
_Take my child in the ship._  
_She is so small and slender;_  
_She'll__ take so little space_  
_ in the ship, almost none at all. _  
_Please, my lord, please be kind,_  
_She is so young and I fear for her._  
_Take care of her, please, _  
_O you're so kind my lord, _  
_ I shall never know_  
_ how to repay your debt;_  
_O please take care of my child..._

They told me that my mother died  
at the edge of a snowy precipice,  
That her bones still are lying  
In the icy water, many fathoms down.  
They told me that she kept on repeating  
Just a few sentences, and later  
just a few words.  
And later, towards the end,  
She could form no more words,  
But she kept on repeating, kept on pleading,  
As if someone who mattered  
Could still hear her.

_Take my child with you my lord, please,_  
_She is so small and innocent;_  
_She is so young and I fear for her. _  
_Please, my lord, please be kind,_  
_Please take care of my child._

8.

How shall I speak to you,  
Silent stars above me  
and twinkling pool of lamps below me,  
How shall I tell you  
Of the downfallen, the tortured, the proud,  
Of those who betrayed  
and those who were betrayed,  
And those who turned from the road?  
How shall I speak  
To the twilight over-brimming with sweet-scented lilac  
and with deep flowing grass,  
To the halls trailing with ivy and with echoes,  
To you, childhood home, blessed land, deathless land,  
Of those who laboured in the shadow  
and those who were lost in the shadow,  
How shall I speak of Endorë?  
How shall I speak of the dead?

If I had the words I would speak of them,  
I would tell you so much about them.  
I would tell you that they were beautiful  
even unto the end,  
I would tell you  
there was great love within them.  
But the words will not come to me.  
No words left in me  
but reverberations,  
No words for them  
in this abandoned house,  
among Tirion's hills,  
in this unstained land  
this childhood home of mine.

9.

Unstained land  
Radiant with the silence of the stars,  
The city glimmering  
with secret dreams,  
The hills rank upon rank undulating,  
And in the distance the tender cradle  
of white Pelóri's arms.

The unseen hand that touches gently the tattered curtains,  
The fragrance of lilac and of briar-rose in the evening-breeze  
in deep verdant spring,  
Pushing aside the curtains and turning the pages  
of the books still open on the table,  
The brushes and pens lying haphazard where they last fell,  
The walls and pillars dark-green and rustling with strands of ivy,  
The shimmering dust  
upon the lutes and the lonely harp  
With all their strings broken.

10.

If I had the words  
I would tell you of tears raining  
For the grief of sundering, for all that were lost,  
But not only of tears and of the lost.  
I would tell you of love  
that flared with the lightning and burned with the grass,  
love that fell and rose with the white-plumed tides,  
love that bled into the stony roots of mountains--  
I would even tell you something of joy.

Sirion's waves rolling silver,  
Swelling with the mountain-storm,  
with each drop of dew upon the plain,  
Carrying Brethil's leaves and petals, the journeying skiff,  
the boulders crumbling of cliffs and towers,  
and voices whispering hope, memories, blood,  
Carrying the broken and burnt bodies of the slain out to the blue sea,  
Carrying the music of jubilation and the deep dirges,  
The spring-melt rich with the smell of pine-needles  
and of high winds,  
Rising from the caverns of the earth, the chasm's mouth,  
From the multitudinous hills draped kingfisher green,  
From Mithrim in the twilight, from the reflections  
of the calling sun, and the calling moon,  
From the cloud-dappled grassland, bestarr'd with flowers,  
The thunderous passage, manes flying,  
The long days' ride--  
And the traveller came home glad and weary  
to the city gates awash with the dawn,  
Past the many-spired fortress and the first flash of the fountain,  
Wending with the white-paved lanes,  
Past the fading lamps at market,  
the women and girls in the gardens,  
The lovers tremulous, lingering still...  
To the rhythmic shouts of the stone-cutters and masons  
and the answering shouts above,  
To the proud and beautiful lady at the window, her eyes grave,  
Remembering a dead parent or brother or child,  
To thread and shuttle, the sad and sinuous lay,  
The turbulent heart seeking  
light, glory, and a world to call its own,  
The lonely singer seeking an answer in empty places,  
And the abandoned one that stood defiant upon the road  
seeking neither pardon nor return;  
No road returned  
but to Thangorodrim's gate,  
Dark with the tattooing of drums, the trumpets' blare,  
And the crimson glint of the spear  
as the young warrior marched away  
without a glance back,  
To the field of blades, to the dragons,  
The sky afire and convulsing with arrows,  
Surrounded upon the knoll  
with all his comrades dead and the steed beneath him dying,  
And the banner silver and blue  
stained and in tatters upon the splinter'd staff;  
Or to the slaying of his kinsmen and women  
For a ravaged mid-winter light,  
Once again to death and the making of death,  
But of these deeds I cannot speak and will not sing,  
Only of the distant smoke, seen through bare branches,  
By the glow of stars, always the same stars  
that shone down on Valinor's songs,  
As the wanderer many days alone in the forest  
with no hope nor refuge,  
Stopped to gaze with blurred sight  
Upon the footprints behind him, a single uneven row, knee-deep,  
With here and there drops of blood marking the snow--  
While in Tirion's courtyards the lilac and the briar-rose  
spread and bloomed wild  
White and red.

11.

The song unloosed within me,  
An exile's song of no returning,  
Halting, discordant song,  
Song of Endorë, a marred song,  
Out of the midnight's heart of sorrow.

Those who carried demons upon their shoulders  
each moment, each step,  
each lick of the flame, each lash of the soul,  
Yet still went on,  
Those who survived  
bodies torn and emaciated, haunted, blind  
Yet still went on;  
Those who died in fields and in cities  
and in unlit underground places,  
Those who died together with all their families  
and those who died alone,  
Their voices are unloosed within me,  
Flying with the briar-rose blown white and red,  
Sinking with the dust;  
And the voices of Tirion's dreams  
are rising from all the lamps silver and gold,  
Gathering in the song and receiving it  
In loving reply.

12.

Past the walls and the blowing flowers,  
Past the fallen eaves and gate-stones of my childhood home,  
A soul exiled with no returning  
reaches forth and descends  
step by step  
After the unloosed voices, the unloosed song,  
Tentative, unwilling yet, ever further, ever closer  
To the shining pool, the tender and mournful city,  
To the tears and dreams, silver and gold.

I see lights innumerable in the windows,  
I see scenes of gladness  
and scenes of heartbreak,  
The flashing recognition, the embraces, arms clinging,  
Choked, trying to speak, guilty, pardoned, blameless:  
I see their eyes, all of them,  
and all their voiceless thoughts.

I see a warrior of many swift fell deeds,  
Lingering fearful and hesitant by a slender gate.  
He lifts his hand to knock, lowers it again--  
_Surely, surely she would have long been wed..._

I see a girl sitting in the garden,  
Solitary, arms wrapped about her knees.  
The light of the stars  
is raining down  
Upon her shoulders, and her face wet with shame  
For the wounds of her body,  
For being frail and sad,  
For the nightmares  
Out of the deep ruins of the dungeon  
beneath Angband, where they found her.  
She remembers so little of the stars, and of the open air.

13.

I see lamps streaming bright, the doors thrown open  
Warm and joyful before the sweet silvery night.  
The vigil ended, she comes running--and stops  
Atop the steps, suddenly  
motionless, perfectly straight,  
Eyes still searching, one pale hand  
gripping hard the jamb.

This tall soldier, her son  
Home, a boy no longer,  
Standing living and real upon the path,  
But O the turn of his face--the stricken night,  
The halted step, alone, and his eyes  
dark, not meeting hers.

_It was the final battle upon the northern plain,_  
_The night before Thangorodrim fell._  
_The enemy desperate, the earth itself_  
_Writhed in flames, and thrice our standard_  
_Wavered, but held its ground._  
_Father was in the vanguard, the first rank..._

Stumbling, she rushes down the steps,  
To take her child in her arms.  
The words in her ears are broken and faint,  
Not yet the full rending,  
Not yet the anguished cry,  
Not yet the flooding memories  
of the last parting, from husband and son.

14.

I see a babe asleep in the cradle,  
To the crooning notes of a lullaby.  
Newly arrived, wondrous,  
His father was born of white Gondolin  
before its fall,  
And his mother of Doriath, teeming, deep-rooted,  
before its fall.  
And the child was born of the crossing,  
The ocean's passage from lost Beleriand,  
While the waves frolicked, lapping the ship's sides,  
and the mariners sang.

The newborn infant dreams in the cradle  
Of dancing clouds and gleaming green.  
And in the lullaby's notes, the low caressing tune  
Comes another music stranger and greater:  
The winds of the sky, and the tides of the sea.

15.

All the voices,  
The voices rapt and eloquent of the dead whisper to me,  
The infinite outpouring music of the living washes over me,  
The radiant subtle silence of the last stars and the first dawn  
calls before me.

In the mingling of innumerable lights,  
I see a child  
Running and skipping, shouting with glee,  
Out from these gates heavy and dark-streaked with weather,  
Black hair flying.

Take my hand mother, take my hand father,  
Come with me to the city, the stairs of jasper  
and the crystal streets,  
Come quick, tell me the names  
Of all the trees and flowers, and all the marvels  
Of Tirion the Bright, snow-fair,  
Sorrowless city.

16.

Let go the proud visions,  
Let go the flowing and ebbing song of grief,  
The lonely question shouted from the shadows,  
And the replies whisper'd of the deathless hills.

I am with the forsaken and the lost,  
I am with those with low-bowed heads,  
I am with those who still are dreaming and wandering.

Never to return, yet ever returning,  
my voice cries unto thee  
Childhood home, and the home of those I love,  
With the pool of tears glimmering, fading,  
With the endless wind bringing the sunrise from the distant sea,  
With the leaves verdant,  
With the briar-rose entwined and the lilac fragrant upon the air,  
In profusion  
white and red flying,

In Tirion's splendid spring.


	3. The Valier

_Disclaimer:_ All of Arda belong to Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.

* * *

**The Valier**

****

The number of their names  
is infinite, so it's said,  
as many, at least,  
as there are breathes  
in an Elvish life,  
or silent grains of sand  
since time began,  
or drops of rain.

I've been singing  
since the day I was born.  
Still, I'll never manage  
to complete the litany  
of these faces, and melodies,  
and voices that whisper  
to the Eternal Feminine.

Dusky Vairë, an artist  
and historian,  
drew me into the labyrinth  
with a silver thread.  
And swift Nessa  
led me out again:  
she pierced me with laughter  
and green sunbeams.

Vána is the stirring,  
the flash out of the blue.  
Maidenly Nienna,  
stronger than tears,  
more ancient than hope.  
And Yavanna is the root  
for all the flowers.

Varda the conflagration,  
the tempest and the rose:  
_Ah Elbereth!_  
A glance of her eyes  
would blind one with joy.

And at last,  
when the music was lulled,  
barely to be heard,  
and the heart  
had broken its fill,  
then Estë laid her fingers  
upon my forehead,  
and I slept  
as softly as snow.

_--after Jaroslav Seifert_


	4. Makebelieve

_Disclaimer:_ All of Arda belong to Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.

Prompted by a line in the _Narn i Hîn Húrin_, which seemed to me to have something about it that did not quite fit with the rest of the narrative, for some reason. Mostly I wondered: how did he know?

* * *

**  
Make-believe**

.

"But Nellas of Doriath never saw him again, and his shadow passed from her."

_--Narn i Hîn Húrin_

"...the _Narn i Hîn Húrin_ was the work of a Mannish poet, Dírhavel, who lived at the Havens of Sirion in the days of Eärendil, and there gathered all the tidings that he could of the House of Hador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitives of Dor-lómin, of Nargothrond, of Gondolin, or of Doriath."

_--Notes to the _Narn i Hîn Húrin

.

When was the first time he chanted the lay? The wedding of Eärendil and Elwing? No, a wedding required something more joyful, songs of hope and happiness in these dark days. It was another time. Earlier. Later. In the evening, with the twilight just starting to fall. On Sirion's bank, with the sea in the distance.

She lived alone, same as she had in Doriath, coming rarely into the city, so he was surprised to see that this time she came. There, at the very back of the audience. She seemed uncomfortable to be among the crowd. Grey eyes. Sometimes, he thought he had come to known those eyes well, and sometimes, not at all. All the times they talked, all the things she told (names, words, carefully collected bits and pieces of a Man's childhood in the guarded forest)--she had always looked at him in that quiet way of hers, just like this, like now. He could never quite describe it though he knew many tongues.

The _narn_ began. He could see her grey gaze fixed intently upon him, far in the back, half-obscured by rapt faces. The young son of the lord of Dor-lómin, who would by rights have been his lord, too. He had been no more than a youth, himself, when he left the north. A battlefield littered with the dead--the glimmer of tears in many of his listeners' eyes. The King and Queen in Menegroth. Now tears in other eyes.

She had been so homesick.

_And his shadow passed from her._

He did not know this, for it was not true. But maybe he could make it true, if he but put it in the poem. Make-believe, and the other man's shadow--the great Man's shadow--would pass from her.

The Dragon-helm, Mormengil. Accursed by Fate, beloved of Fate. Beloved. Beloved. Beloved. The words came out slowly now. Túrin. Turambar. Dagnir. Glaurunga.

"Blind, blind, groping since childhood in a dark mist of Morgoth!"

He himself was merely a poet.

As he finished, there was a long moment of silence. Then applause, cries of acclamation, the listeners surging forward. The night was deep now. Scanning the back of the crowd, he found that she had already slipped away.


	5. Night Storm

_Disclaimer:_ All of Arda belong to Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.

* * *

**Night Storm**

.

For the first time in years beyond count, he fears for the ship.

Silver sails strain against the wind, near to bursting; hallowed timbers groan in anguish. The light of the Jewel has gone wild, shattering into a million whirling shards to every direction. About the mast the very Ilmen twists and roils, bent by gigantic unseen hands. Varda's stars shudder, spinning away, and for a while he loses sight of North.

This is not the end of Arda, he tells himself, not yet. Steady, steady. Take the ropes, let down the sail. Grip the wheel and don't let go. It is not the stars, but only the deck beneath his feet that is heaving and swaying. There--the Valacirca still hangs fiery and proud above the void. He fixes his gaze to it, and retakes his bearings. Though the shape of the world changes, and doom falls swift upon the Land of Gift, he will keep his course.

For a flash, the swan prow slices the clouds asunder, and he catches a glimpse of black waters, mountainous waves crested with lightning. But the shadows grow apace, the darkness thickens, piling about the ship's sides, and he no longer sees sea or land. Not the mighty fleets that for many nights have choked the horizon with their forest of masts, their banners black and gold. Not the towers that for an age have reflected his radiance with countless lamps.

"Ilúvatar, Thy will...Thy will be done..." he murmurs into the wind. Then his voice falters, heavy with unshed tears.

Elros's people, his own kin, whom he himself once led to this isle, fairest of all mortal lands. Year after year he has poured his light down upon their harbours and fields and cities, watching them come to wisdom, to splendour, to folly, to ruin. Even unto the end he has sought his son in the features of the kings' faces, but their eyes--their eyes have long been unrecognizable. Alas that he could never walk among them, never speak to them of all he has seen and learned! How is it that they have fallen to this?

A sudden turbulence wrenches the ship, almost knocking him off his feet. Gritting his teeth, the Mariner leans hard upon the wheel, and once more Vingilot's prow straightens against the roaring gale. Though grief surges within him like the black tide that surrounds the heavens, he will not let it eclipse the flame upon his brow, nor weaken the strength of his hands. When the day comes he will return to Elwing, and upon the shore they will weep for their child's children. But now he will keep his course, as well as he can make it out. For the clouds will break eventually, the storm end, and when it does, the survivors, if any, will have need of him.


	6. Dolphins of Gondolin

_Note:_ Originally posted for the fanfic100 challenge on Livejournal, on the character Eärendil. For more, please visit my LJ (link at author profile).

Everything belongs to Professor Tolkien.

* * *

**Dolphins of Gondolin  
**

.

It's been an age and half, and he still looks for it every time.

Clear conditions over Belegaer tonight. The world lies becalmed, all silver ripples and azure dreams, and the tide no more than a gentle deep breath upon the bent belly of the ocean. Silence crystallizes upon the autumn air.

He has left the coastline behind hours ago; there are no marks upon the waters. So tonight, same as every night, he glances to the stars for relative position, estimates the distance from land. He scans the dappled patterns of blue beneath the prow--there, that spot right there, for a moment it catches the light, stands out in brightness. Is it a shallow spot? And is that glint a revelation of something pale and vast beneath?

The sails slacken. With a touch upon the wheel, he lowers the ship, drawing nearer to the luminous surface. A splash, no larger than an ephemeral white speck from this distance. An almost invisible arc flickers above the waves, then another, then several more, then dozens.

Far below, the flock of dolphins frolics on, and he gazes down, the tendril of a smile at last reaching the corner of his mouth. The sight of his eyes cannot penetrate the depths, yet he wonders if perhaps this time, he has caught a glimpse of it after all. The dolphins are dancing among the carved towers of his childhood, and snowy peaks that once have encircled Gondolin.


End file.
